


The Thing About Weddings

by Hemlockconium



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Arguing, Canon Compliant, Disasters, F/M, Family Issues, First Time, Jealousy, Marauder's Era, Marauders, POC James Potter, POV Female Character, POV Third Person, Past Tense, Pre-Canon, Romantic Fluff, Sibling Rivalry, Sister-Sister Relationship, Sisters, Soulmates, Weddings, jily
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 12:16:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17981165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hemlockconium/pseuds/Hemlockconium
Summary: During the Christmas holidays of 1977, Lily Evans attends her sister's wedding with her boyfriend in tow and with specific instructions from Petunia to act as normal as possible or else. But if the sisters' subsequent estrangement is anything to go by: all did not go according to plan. Here's my take on the straw that broke the camel's back.





	The Thing About Weddings

Petunia hadn’t wanted to get married in Cokeworth’s grimy, eroding church. She’d wanted somewhere fancier and grander, but with Mum paying for half the wedding and with money being tight at the moment, Petunia had had to compromise. But never let it be said that she could not make a little go a long way, and although Lily was pretty sure that her sister had managed to guilt or cajole some of their maiden aunts into covering certain expanses, she wasn’t about to make her accusation known, lest she be ‘asked’ to leave.

She’d been warned by Petunia many times over the past few weeks not to ruin this day for her, it was the most her sister had spoken to her since they were children. She’d almost not been invited at all, and she was sure Petunia would have been quite happy to keep her  _freak_  sister away from her big day had Mum not insisted Lily attend. But a line had to be drawn somewhere apparently, and despite Mum’s persistent pleading Petunia had refused to have Lily as a bridesmaid. Lily had been upset by that, but she’d let it go quickly enough. She was well past letting her sister get to her, or so she thought. She just hoped the day's events wouldn't prove her wrong.

“Are all Muggle clothes this constraining?” asked James very quietly so that her cousins sat next to her wouldn’t hear. He was fiddling with his tie and shirt collar again and she slapped his hands away to fix the mess he’d made of it.

“Compared to robes, yes,” she said, surveying her work. She was very good at tying bow ties, she’d used to help her Dad with his every morning before he went to work. She was out of practice now though. Had it really been four years since the crash? She could have sworn not so much time had passed.

Her Dad had worked for a car sales company. It hadn’t been his dream job, but it had paid the bills and had kept food on the table. He’d once confided in her that when they had enough money saved up, he wanted to quit and become a writer – he’d had the plot of his first book all figured out and everything. But he died before he got the chance. Dad had been driving home from an out of town business meeting when another driver had overtaken him and accidentally pushed him off the road; a head-on collision with a tree and a dodgy seatbelt later, and he passed before they could get him to the hospital.

“Lily, you okay?” James’s voice was soft and he squeezed her hand as she shook off the memories.

She smiled and nodded, straightening his tie one last time and running her hands down the lapels of his suit. Constraining or not, it couldn’t be denied that James looked good in a tuxedo. He’d panicked when she’d told him that the dress attire was Muggle formal only, but Sirius had dragged him up to the boys dormitories, proclaiming himself the fashion guru of Gryffindor tower. It had been Lily’s turn to panic then, wondering just how much leather and eyeliner her boyfriend would be wearing if he followed Sirius’s advice. She didn’t know if Sirius had grown some sense without her noticing – probably not – or if Remus and Peter had stepped in before James could show up to Petunia’s wedding looking like an Alice Cooper wannabe, but he fit right in in the draughty Catholic church, although his suit was perhaps a little too expensive for Cokeworth and his skin not quite as white as the rest of the people in attendance. Lily was biased, but she thought he was definitely the most handsome man in the room.

“Your sister knows a lot of people,” he said, glancing around the packed church. It was full to the brim with so many people on Petunia’s side that a few had had to sit on Vernon’s.

“She sure does.” Except Petunia hadn’t spoken to half these people in years, and the meaner part of Lily’s brain, the part that was sick and tired of her sister’s attitude, knew that Petunia had only invited all her ex-friends and ex-classmates because she wanted to show off. In fact, Lily wasn’t sure if Petunia genuinely liked any of the people in attendance at all.

The pianist started playing the Bridal Chorus and every conversation stopped as the entire room turned in their seats to watch Petunia walk through the large wooden doors, arm in arm with Vernon’s father.

She was radiant, gliding forth in a large meringue skirt, with a lace bodice that had puffed cap sleeves, and a long veil that trailed behind her. It was her dream dress, the one she’d fantasized about countless times as a child, the likes of which belonged to fairy tale princesses. She only had two bridesmaids leading the way down the aisle: one was a colleague from her old clerical job, and the other was Marge Dursley, Vernon’s sister, who looked almost exactly like him – put a wig on him, trim his moustache, fit him in a dress, and they could have been twins. Lily suppressed a snigger as she pictured Vernon waddling down the aisle wearing the shimmering grey bridesmaid dress and holding a bouquet of white roses.

Petunia pecked Mr. Dursley on the cheek when they arrived in front of the priest and stood stiffly next to Vernon, who, in Lily’s opinion, looked like a particularly fat walrus in his tight fitting black suit. As the priest spoke of love and commitment, Petunia was practically thrumming with energy while Vernon just looked bored; they spoke their vows, which sounded generic and impersonal; and when the time came for them to seal the deal with a kiss, Vernon lifted Petunia’s veil, revealing her expression: not one of love and happiness like Lily had expected, but one of triumph. It was the same expression she’d worn when she’d won the county’s spelling bee when she was ten, not that she’d had any interest in proper grammatical spelling, but her best-friend-at-the-time had been competing, and Petunia was never one to be outdone.

Petunia and Vernon turned to face their friends and family as the priest pronounced them Mister and Missus Dursley, and the church erupted with applause.

Lily was happy for her sister, even if she thought that Vernon was a strong contestant for the dullest man on the planet; this was what Petunia had always wanted and she’d finally gotten it: her gateway to a completely ordinary life.

The theme for the reception was ‘winter wonderland’, and Lily couldn’t deny that it was beautiful. The catering hall was decked in white and silver, with twinkling fairy lights dangling from the ceiling and woven between the silver-coated branches of the small trees that stood around the edges of the hall; a projector cast patterns of large, swirling snowflakes over the dance floor and walls; and the wedding cake was nearly as tall as the three year old flower girl and decorated with white roses and silver baubles and a glass figurine of the newly-weds. It had even started snowing as they’d left the church, adding to the picturesque scenery.

Lily and James were seated far away from the bride and groom’s table with all her cousins, right next to the kids’ table. But she didn’t mind; the air was far less stuffy over here than it was around Petunia’s new in-laws. James was giving her younger family members an edited retelling of his latest prank, leaving out the more  _magical_  details, and the eyes of everyone at their table and the tables around theirs were riveted on him. Figures that even among Muggles he was the centre of attention.

It was only when her Great Aunt Jane asked him what A Levels he was taking that Lily realized that he had  _studied_  for this. He didn’t even hesitate as he rattled off a few Muggle subjects and briefly discussed his exams and possible university courses, and Lily stared at him in awe. He caught her watching and winked at her before turning back to another relative who started quizzing him about football. Lily was drawn into a conversation with two of her cousins, but she only half paid attention, too busy listening to James impress her family with his newly acquired Muggle sports knowledge.

Vernon’s best man was perhaps as dull as he was, and while his speech lasted a good half hour Lily zoned out after the first couple of minutes. The guy could give Professor Binns a run for his money. But once he was done the party really started.

The DJ, a second cousin twice removed or something, wasn’t brilliant, but everyone was too drunk to care, and Lily was tipsy enough after a couple of glasses of champagne that when James dragged her onto the dance floor she didn’t resist.

For all his skill on a broom, James was an awful dancer. He’d apparently had some ballroom lessons when he was a kid, but he’d been so bad that he’d made his instructor cry, and seeing him now: gangly arms and legs wind-milling around the dance floor, it wasn’t hard to believe. Lily laughed even as Vernon’s relatives tutted their disapproval. It was only when he nearly took someone’s eye out with a bastardized version of the Disco Finger that she cut in. He took to the change of situation quickly and started spinning her around instead. She was dizzy and unstable on her feet by the time he stopped.

He laughed, catching her as she stumbled. “Alright there, Evans?”

“Brilliant,” she said, looping her arms around his neck. “You?”

“Couldn’t be better.” He swooped down for a kiss, and Lily worried that he’d misjudged the distance, but he slowed at the last second, pressing his lips softly to hers. “I’m glad you invited me.”

“So am I.” Their lips were still touching and she tilted her face to kiss him properly.

The sound of cutlery clinking against glass announced the coming of more speeches, and Lily had only to glance over at Uncle Marvin swaying slightly as he held his champagne flute aloft to know that Petunia was wearing an expression of horrified dread.

Lily giggled and pulled James away from the dance floor. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?” he asked, raising his eyebrows when she grabbed a full bottle of wine from one of the tables.

“Anywhere we can’t hear Uncle Marv’s speech.”

He grinned slowly. “Is it embarrassing?”

“Depends who you ask, but I think we can find something more entertaining to do than listen to his latest conspiracy theory.”

He followed her without any further questions, and they ended up in a small courtyard. There were fairy lights here too, but any other decorations were hidden beneath a couple of inches of snow. The cold meant that they had the place to themselves and a few warming charms dispelled the chill fast enough as well as the snow that covered one of the benches.

“That’s better,” she said as they sat themselves down. The cool air felt wonderful against her skin after the stifling heat from the reception hall. “How are you liking the Muggle wedding experience so far?”

“It’s alright. Not all that different from a magical one, really, except for that first bit in the old building with the spires and the guy in the white and gold robes, that we don’t do.”

“That’s because witches and wizards aren’t religious.”

“Are you?” he asked, giving her a sideways glance. “I mean… when you get married is this the kind of thing you want?”

Lily stared at the small fountain that’s water was frozen over, wondering just how loaded that question was. “No, I don’t think so. I’d want something smaller, just friends and close family. I think it would be less stressful if we kept it simple and intimate.”

She didn’t realize her tongue had slipped until James pointed it out. “We?”

Her face started burning and her eyes widened. “I didn’t mean – not like that – I’m not assuming -” But James was grinning, his eyes twinkling behind the lenses of his glasses.

“Simple and intimate sounds good to me,” he said softly, lacing their fingers together.

She let out a long exhale and felt the tension in her shoulders fade. Just like that it was said aloud: they were on the same page. It had been an odd thing for her, that feeling of slowly falling in love with James Potter. It had happened so slowly, in fact, that she hadn’t noticed how far they’d come until they were already there.

She’d decided she disliked ‘that obnoxious Potter boy’ – as she used to call him – from the day they first met back on the Hogwarts Express during First Year, because he’d been rude to Severus and he’d reminded her of some of the posher boys at her old school who’d used to tease her and pull her hair. She’d stubbornly kept that dislike for years, letting every little thing about James irritate her: from his pranks, to the way he always mussed up his hair, including the infuriating fact that he never seemed to study but always got top marks regardless. She’d been exaggerating his flaws, she knew that now. Her blind loyalty to Severus had forced a blind disapproval of all things James Potter, but when she and Severus had a major, unfixable falling out at the end of Fifth Year, her aversion to James began to fade as she realized that he was no longer the obnoxious, irresponsible, immature person she’d made him out to be. He was actually kind of sweet, and funny, and charming in a goofy kind of way.

“I love you,” he whispered, raising their entwined fingers up and laying a kiss on her knuckles.

“I love you too.” She wasn’t sure why they were whispering, but it made her feel as though the words were meant just for their ears and that the rest of the world couldn’t touch what they had.

It wasn’t the first time they’d exchanged those words; that had been a couple of weeks ago while they were messing around in a broom cupboard during their rounds. She’d been struggling to undo his robes, wanting to feel skin under her hands, and he’d blurted it out. His brown skin had taken on a red tinge and he’d spluttered apologies and denials, much like she had done a few minutes ago, until she’d said it back to him. His smile had been the most serene she’d ever seen, and it had sent her heart racing. It was then that she realized that James Potter was it for her. He was her person, her significant other… her soulmate.

She twisted on the bench, sliding her legs over his, and pulled him down into a kiss. When his lips parted she took the opportunity to flick her tongue into his mouth, and he moaned as she deepened the kiss.

They were tucked away between a couple of firethorn bushes, completely out of sight from anyone inside, and she was going to make the most of it. She’d kissed other boys before she’d started dating James, but none of them had kissed her with even half the enthusiasm that James had. She’d been his first kiss – so long as you didn’t count the enchanted mistletoe incident in Fourth Year when he’d had to briefly snog Sirius – but whatever he’d lacked in technique, he’d more than made up for in zeal. By the time they broke apart, she was straddling his lap and his roaming fingers had ruined her chignon, but she couldn’t find it in herself to care. Her warming charms were fading and she was starting to get a bit cold, though.

“We should head back inside,” she said, taking a swig from the bottle of wine and handing it to James.

“You think Uncle Marv’s had time to finish his speech?”

“Mum’s probably shut him down by now.”

He took her hand as she led the way back to the reception hall. They’d barely gotten through the door when her Mum popped up beside her elbow.

“Where have you been? It’s time for the bouquet toss, come on.”

Lily was dragged to the centre of the room where most of the women had gathered in front of Petunia. There was a lot of elbow jostling and fighting stances, and Lily was so distracted by how ridiculous it was that she almost got knocked out when the bouquet flew over her head and the swarm behind her lunged for it. She was pushed out of the way and stumbled off to the side where James caught her, looking bemused at the scene before him.

“Why are they fighting over flowers?” he asked as she tried to fix her hair.

“It’s a silly Muggle wedding tradition.” She gave up with the chignon and let it fall loose, combing the strands with her fingers and hoping it looked at least halfway decent. “Whoever catches the bride’s bouquet gets some of her romantic good fortune.”

“Is the bouquet blessed or something?”

“No, it’s just superstition. Petunia would throw a fit if it was real magic.”

James gave her an odd look and she wondered if she’d sounded a tad too bitter, but before she could dwell on it longer, she overheard Vernon’s mother tutting within earshot.

“What’s all this nonsense about real magic?”

Lily glanced over her shoulder but Mrs. Dursley wasn’t asking her, she was talking to Vernon while glaring down her nose at Lily.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” said Vernon, smiling jovially. “It’s that boyfriend of hers, he’s some kind of amateur magician or something.”

Lily was mortified and was about to apologize profusely to James when she caught him smiling.

“Magicians are those Muggles who do fake magic tricks, right?” he asked her in a whisper so that they wouldn’t be overheard.

She nodded and before she could worry further about him getting offended, he skipped over to Vernon and Mrs. Dursley with a shit eating grin on his face.

“I’ve actually been practising some of my magic tricks,” he said even as the Dursleys glared at him. “Would you like to see?”

Mrs. Dursley scoffed. “Not all of us have time for such silliness.”

“It’ll only take a minute.” And James proceeded to conjure a bouquet of flowers out of thin air which he handed to Mrs. Dursley. It caught people's attention and he soon had a crowd gathered around him applauding and asking for more.

Vernon was looking extremely tense, and thankfully Petunia was nowhere to be seen, but Lily, who knew what James could do with a wand, wasn’t sure he was using real magic. In fact, she was convinced he was doing actual Muggle tricks.

“Where did you learn to do all that?” she asked him once he’d run out of tricks and the crowd had cleared.

He looked pleased with himself as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “A magician never reveals his secrets.”

“You didn’t use your wand. Were those real-fake tricks?” she asked. She knew he’d tell her, he was awful at keeping trivial secrets.

“Peter went through a faze during Second Year. I thought it was kind of cool, you know, doing magic without really doing magic, so I asked him to teach me. Sirius thought it was lame, kept making fun of us because of it.”

She nodded as it came back to her. “I remember that, you kept asking anyone who’d listen to pick a card. It was kind of lame.”

Her teasing earned her a hair ruffling and she was glad for the low lighting, she could only imagine the state it was in now after everything it had been through.

“You’ve gotten much better at it since the, though,” she said. “Is that what you do when you’re not hanging out with me or the boys or on the Quidditch pitch? Practice magic tricks?”

He scoffed far too hard to be credible. “No, of course not.”

“You’re a terrible liar and a giant dork.” She quickly escaped his grasp before he could retaliate physically and he stumbled a little without her to lean on.

“I’ll have you know I’m very cool, not to mention suave and sophisticated and fiendishly handsome.”

“The look on Vernon's face when you made that coin disappear then pulled it from behind his ear was priceless, I’ll give you that.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a human being go that colour before,” he laughed. “He looked like he was about to explode.”

Their fit of giggles was drawn to a close as the DJ announced it was time for the cake cutting. Everyone gathered around the seven tier cake, waiting for the moment that would symbolize the couple’s first joint task as newly-weds. Vernon and Petunia held the knife in their joint hands, his large arm was wrapped around her tiny waste, and they smiled at each other, and for the first time that day Lily saw love in their eyes. It was a beautiful moment that was ruined all too quickly when disaster struck: all it took was for a legless Uncle Marvin to bump against the delicate, spindly table and it collapsed under the combined weight of her drunk uncle and the formerly impressive wedding cake.

Lily saw it crumble as if in slow motion, she saw Uncle Marvin stumble forward as the table gave out, his awkward flailing tipping the surface ever so slightly and altering the course of the statuesque cake’s fall that had previously been heading her way but that was now flying straight towards Petunia. Lily reacted on instinct with a burst of magic so primal it was like the accidental magic she’d done as a kid, and suddenly she wasn’t the only one seeing the cake tumble in slow motion. For an instant it looked like time was reversing: Uncle Marvin was righting himself; the table was rebuilding itself; and the cake was inching back to its correct state. Then Lily caught the look of abject horror on her sister’s face, not directed at the near catastrophe, but at Lily herself. James’s hand was on her shoulder and she realized what she was doing and who she was doing it in front of, her mind cleared and the magic was undone: Uncle Marvin landed in the debris of the table and the three top tiers of the cake splattered against Petunia’s dress, the glass figurine of the newly-weds shattered against the hard ground, and the gathered crowd held its breath, wide eyes taking in the calamity. Tears formed in Petunia’s eyes, but she held her head eye, sniffed irately, and flounced out of the hall as quickly as was dignified.

James squeezed her shoulder gently, his voice soft with comfort. “Lily -”

“I need to see if she’s alright,” Lily interrupted him, extracting herself from his hold and jogging after Petunia as the milling onlookers whispered among themselves and her Mum set up a cake rebuilding workshop.

By the time Lily caught up with her, Petunia had made her way to the empty courtyard and was pacing angrily between the frozen fountain and a funny looking statue that might have been a deformed child or an expressionism inspired cupid. The bottom of her dress was soaked through with snow and she’d thrown the tiara her veil had been attached to into a thorny bush where it glinted from the lights seeping out from inside. She looked furious regardless of the tears that streamed down her face and it was enough to make Lily think that perhaps this was a bad idea. Her relationship with her sister wasn’t what it used to be and it hadn’t been for a long time, they felt little more now for each other than ambivalence lined with loathing. However, call her a sentimental fool for the thought, but Lily did feel like she owed Petunia something. A gesture of goodwill, a remnant of the past gone by and forgotten. So she sucked it up and tried not to flinch as the full force of her sister’s palpable anger hit her.

“Tuney are you alright?” she asked quietly. In that moment she’d rather have taken on a dozen Death Eaters than her distraught sister, they were less frightening.

“Go away, freak,” Petunia snapped, not sparing her a glance as Lily flinched away from the insult.

Petunia liked that word, always had, ever since they were children. She liked how it connoted something that was abnormal, unnatural, and wrong, which in her opinion were the worst possible things a person could be. She used to use it on kids who were smaller than she was or poorer or fatter or spottier, anyone who was different. The first time Petunia had used the word to describe Lily was at King’s Cross Station on platform nine and three quarters over six years ago, and it had made Lily cry more than she’d ever cried before. It had been the starting point of their relationship’s rapid deterioration, and Lily felt as though she was hanging by a thread whenever she was in her sister’s presence ever since.

“It was a beautiful ceremony, Tuney. One little accident isn’t going to ruin it.”

“Don’t patronize me,” Petunia snarled, her eyes flaring as she took in her sister for the first time. “The florist added roses to the centrepieces after I specifically asked for gardenias and white peonies, and the pianist was off tempo for the whole processional.”

“I’m sure no one noticed.”

“Perhaps not, but you made sure there was one mistake they did notice, didn’t you?” Petunia spat venomously.

“I was trying to help.”

“By showing everyone how abnormal you are?” Petunia kicked at the rocks at her feet, sending them flying toward the other side of the courtyard. “You ruined my wedding!”

Lily took a deep, calming breath. Petunia was upset, now wasn’t the time to be picking fights. “I didn’t ruin -”

“Yes, you did. I told you to be normal, just for one day – my special day – and you couldn’t even do that. You obviously don’t care about anyone but yourself. I don't know why I'm surprised, you always were a selfish brat.”

It was too much, standing out in the cold, facing Petunia in her ruined bridal gown, while she was wearing a dress that was  _not_  that of a bridesmaid’s. That alone felt like rubbing salt on a wound whose existence she was vehemently trying to deny. But on top of that Petunia was calling her selfish,  _h_ _er_ , even as she stood there freezing her tits off because she’d thought her sister might need her. No one else had run out here after Petunia, not her bridesmaids, not Vernon, just Lily, and for what? So that she could be shouted at and made to feel less than she was?

“What do you want from me, Petunia?” Lily asked, her voice harsh even to her own ears. “Do you want me to apologize? Do you want me to beg for forgiveness? Because I’ve tried those things in the past and it has never been enough for you, has it? No matter what I do it will never be enough because you won’t be happy unless I am exactly like you.”

For a few seconds, Petunia’s glare fell. Lily had never spoken to her like that, she’d always tried to be understanding of her sister’s jealousy and kind even when that envy had turned into loathing. But apparently she’d reached her limit and it was time to take a stand.

“What I want,” Petunia said maliciously, her glower firmly back in place, “is for you to stay out of my life. Your actions today prove that you can never be normal, and I don’t want a  _freak_  ruining my life.”

Lily wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, except that this wasn’t it. Her sister’s words hit her like a physical blow and her breath caught in her lungs, but Petunia wasn’t done yet.

“I never want to see you again. I never want to hear from you again. I don’t ever want anyone to so much as mention your name around me. You are not my sister, not anymore, so you’re going to leave, and you’re going to take your freak boyfriend with you, and you’re going to cease to exist in my mind.”

Tears stung at Lily’s eyes as Petunia carried out her vicious tirade. She knew that each word was chosen with care to inflict the most pain, knew that Petunia was playing off of her deepest fear: to be forgotten by the world she’d once been a part of, the world she’d once loved. It wasn’t a fear many of the people in her life knew about and she wasn’t sure anyone who wasn’t Muggle-born could ever understand it. But Petunia knew, somehow, and Lily shouldn’t have been surprised, because if there was one thing she understood about her sister, it was that she always knew more than she let on. Petunia loved to collect knowledge and secrets and scandal – she’d always known more than she’d admit and she always knew exactly how to use it to her advantage.

“Fine,” Lily said once she’d regained enough of her composure to be sure that her voice wouldn’t crack under the words. “If that’s what you want, I’ll leave your life. But know that if you ever need me, I’ll be there for you, no matter what.”

Petunia’s steely glare didn’t falter even as the first tears trailed down Lily’s cheeks. She hurriedly wiped them away and tried for a smile, watery as it may be.

“I hope you live a happy life, Petunia, I truly do.”

She nearly bumped into someone as she turned to go, and had to take a small step back to see her Mum standing there looking ruffled but relieved. “There you girls are, I’ve been looking for you all over. The cake’s mostly back in one piece, Petunia, dear, if you’d like to come back inside, Vernon's waiting for you.”

Neither of the sisters said anything, Petunia was too busy perfecting her stony silence and Lily was trying to hide her tear stained face, but their mother noticed anyway.

“Oh, petal, what’s the matter?”

Lily dodged her mother’s affectionate arms and scurried toward the door. “It’s nothing. I’m just not feeling well, I think I’ll go home.”

She was back inside before her mother could stop her. It was Petunia who wanted to freeze Lily out of her life, the least she could do was explain to the only parent they had left why they’d never have another family Christmas or spend another holiday together. She spotted James amidst a group of her cousins on the other side of the room, she didn’t want to go in there and force on a smile, and thankfully she didn’t have to, James glanced up as she entered the hall and was rushing toward her barely a second later.

“Lily, what’s wrong?”

She didn’t answer straight away so he took her hand and led her out the front door to the parking lot. With no other people around, she let her composure slip and started sobbing uncontrollably. James looked momentarily stunned but he was soon wrapping his arms around her and whispering comforting words into her hair while she buried her face against his chest and cried her eyes out. It took a good five minutes for her to regain the ability to form a coherent thought and longer still to string an adequate sentence together, and James waited patiently as she ruined the front of his suit with tears, mascara, and snot.

“Petunia hates me,” she said between heaving gasps.

“Because of what happened with the cake? You were just trying to help.”

“She doesn’t care, and now she never wants to see me again.” Her violent sobs renewed and he held her tighter.

“What if I told her it was me who did it? She’s never going to like me anyway, I might as well take the blame off of you.”

“It won’t make a difference. She blames me for getting in the way of her perfect, normal life and she always will. It’s my fault there’s this unusualness in her life and she will never stop punishing me for it.”

His voice took on a more forceful note as he lifted her chin to catch her eye. “This isn’t your fault. You had no say in whether or not you were born a witch, and you can’t control how other people react to that, but if your sister can’t see what a wonderful person you are, that’s her loss.”

Her eyes watered for an entirely different reason this time and James kissed the top of her head and started leading her down the street.

“Come on,” he said, “lets get you home.”

The walk back to her mother’s house took them twenty minutes and Lily was glad that James was good enough at Transfiguration to turn her heels into flats, she would not have managed to make the snowy trek otherwise. She was silent most of the way, her mind wiring with all kinds of thoughts and memories and James’s earlier words playing on a loop. He let her ruminate while avidly staring at passing cars and taking great interest in an old, worn down phone box. By the time they got through the front door of the tidy little council house, she couldn’t feel her toes, nose, or fingertips from the cold. Without really thinking about it, she headed up to her room to grab a jumper and James followed behind her.

She’d been a bit embarrassed when she’d shown him around this morning before the ceremony. James came from a wealthy family, his father was an accomplished, world-famous Potioneer, and his mother was a distant descendant of a wizarding royal family in India, and Lily had worried that he might look down on her because of the financial abyss between them. But he hadn’t batted an eye, not at that anyway. Instead, it was all the Muggle appliances that had him jumping around like an excited child, even the fridge held endless fascination for him, and she’d tried to explain to him how it worked to the best of her ability. They’d spent so long in the kitchen that she hadn’t had time to show him her bedroom, but he was about to see it now and she was frantically trying to remember if she’d left any knickers lying around in plain sight or if one of her embarrassing old toys had somehow made its way down from the attic and onto her bed.

Thankfully there was no wayward underwear or teleporting dolls to be seen and she sighed in relief. There wasn’t much to see at all, honestly, most of her stuff was in her dorm at Hogwarts and what was left here were the possessions that hadn’t made the cut when she’d packed over the summer: there were a couple of pictures on the walls, a few books of the bedside table, some old clothes hanging in the wardrobe, and that was about it. The wardrobe, single bed, bedside table, desk, and chair were the only pieces of furniture in the room, and she couldn’t have fit in anything more if she’d tried. She used to share the room across the hall, which was about triple the size, with Petunia back when this had been their Dad’s office before the car crash. She’d come home at the end of Second Year to find that she’d been relocated, Mum had tried to make the room as comfortable as possible for her, but it hadn’t changed the fact that her sister had been so keen to get away from her that she’d gleefully moved her into a room that was barely bigger than the bathroom.

Lily pulled on a sweater and she watched James poke at the unmoving photos of her family.

“Did you mean what you said?” she asked quite suddenly out of nowhere. “About taking the blame for me?”

“Of course. Like I said, her opinion of me can’t get much lower either way.”

“She’d have shouted at you.”

He grinned debonairly. “Love, if I had a Knut for every time someone’s shouted at me I could buy Gringotts.”

She rolled her eyes at him, but couldn’t hold back her smile. She liked it when he called her ‘love’.

“Seriously, though,”he said, sobering, “I don’t get your relationship with you sister, but if keeping it is important to you, I’ll do whatever I can do fix it, whatever it takes to make you happy.”

“You make me happy.” There was no hesitation in her mind, James Potter made her happy, as did the rest of her friends at Hogwarts, but Petunia… Petunia hadn’t made her happy in a long time. “I’m done bending over backwards for people who don’t deserve it, including my sister.”

He pulled her to him and kissed her gently. “Good,” he said, smiling down at her.

She wasn’t ready for the kiss to end so she closed the small distance between them, clinging to him like a lifeline. The brusqueness of her frenzy had him falling backward onto the bed, barely catching himself before his head hit the wall, but that didn’t deter her. They’d never been together on a bed before, it was one of the downsides of having roommates, not to mention the odd prefect who took their job way too seriously, and Lily would be damned if she wasn’t going to make the most of it. She had his jacket and shirt off before his back hit the mattress, and his hands explored every inch of her that he could reach. She broke the kiss just long enough to wiggle out of her jumper and shoes, and got distracted on the way back down by his bare chest. There was something to be said about a Quidditch player’s body and that was: drool worthy. Her eyes trailed up to his face, his glasses were askew and his hair which had been neater than she’d ever seen it this morning was now back to it’s usual messy state, but what caught her attention was the way he was looking at her, the unadulterated awe in his gaze that made her insides burn and turn to goo. She loved this man, she would always love this man, and she knew without a doubt that he would always love her too.

“I love you,” he said, as though reading her mind.

“I love you too.”

Their kiss felt searing hot and endless, and despite the awkwardness of that first tumble together, she had never felt more sated. She lay next to him after, on the brink of sleep, knowing that her sister may never accept her for who and what she was, but certain that it didn’t matter anymore, because family wasn’t just about shared blood and growing up together, it was more than that, it was about who accepted you for who you were and who stood by you no matter what. She had that at Hogwarts; she had Mary, and Marlene, and Dorcas, and Remus, and Sirius, and Peter, and James, especially James, and come hell or high water she would not let that go.

They were her home.


End file.
